Jane Steele(87)

“Enter.”

I peered in; Mr. Thornfield was writing a hurried correspondence, but he levered to his feet, rounding the desk. Either his gloves had been cleaned or he owned multiple pairs, for his linens were spotless and his cravat a rich flourish of burgundy; his cheeks below their sharp angles were sunken, however, and his eyes clearly questioned whether he was about to receive a greeting or a curse.

“The heroine emerges.” The accompanying smile was a faintly glinting sickle. He approached me. “Oh, Jane, have you been crying all this while?”

“Some.”

“God help us, you have every right, only I cannot bear to see it. You are unaware, I think, of the effect your misery has upon me.”

“Perhaps so,” I owned as another drop escaped.

He brushed it away with an almost reverential touch, then gestured at a chair and abruptly returned behind the desk. “Had you been a precious lamb and I a doting shepherd who found it rent by wolves, I couldn’t feel any more harrowed over this—but you are not a lamb, thank Christ for that, you are a lioness and have no need of my bloody incompetent safeguarding. I shall make this all up to you in any way I can, however.”

“I wondered . . .” Lowering myself into the chair, I hesitated. “I would appreciate an advance upon my wages.”

“Of course.” He was already pulling the cheque-book from the drawer. “How much?”

“Whatever you think fair, Mr. Thornfield.”

An efficient scratching sounded. “Will a hundred pounds do?”

“You don’t owe me a hundred pounds!” I exclaimed.

“Must I listen to her talk utter tripe so early in the morning?” he muttered, gripping the blotter. “Here—payment for initial services rendered, including delivering historical, scientific, deportmental, and elocutionary lessons translated into equine form, not to mention reparations for medical disasters. If you want more, you have only to say.”

Swallowing, I placed the cheque in my reticule with the two letters. I did this, reader, because the most idiotic thing that Jane Eyre ever did other than to leave in the first place was to depart without her pearl necklace and half Mr. Rochester’s fortune, which he would gladly have given her. If she had been eaten by a bear upon fleeing penniless into the wilderness, I should have shaken that bear’s paw.

“How cheerless you look still,” he reflected, stormy eyes feathering at their corners. “Come, ask me for something else so that I can say yes, saving only a trunk containing half a million in bauble-draped dolls, for damned if I’ve got it.”

“So much?”

“Yes, blast the cursed thing.”

I cleared my throat. “Mr. Thornfield, I came to tell you my things are packed.”

He scarcely seemed surprised, and soon I fathomed why. “Do you prefer to take a bite of breakfast with me first, or shall I carry ’em over to the cottage so you can dine with Sahjara? I’ll be glad of your company provided you can stomach mine, but you must wish to see her.”

I twisted my fingers together in my lap. “Mr. Thornfield, I am quitting Highgate House. I cannot stay here.”

Mere seconds had passed since he had called me a lamb he should have dreaded to see injured; even were I to etch the words I am now penning straight into the flesh of my arm, the slices would not cut me so thoroughly as his expression did. Far from protesting, Charles Thornfield froze in surprise, then seemed to crumple, as if taking a blow which was not unexpected.

“No, it isn’t that,” I pleaded. “It’s not your story, nor the distress I was caused—I want to hear all of your woes, and I’d wield a knife for your sake a thousand times over, but you honestly cannot want me to have charge of your ward.”

“Why the devil not?” he demanded hoarsely.

“Because . . . because you know me to be a murderer.”

“For Christ’s sake, Jane, that makes a neatly matched pair of us. We’ll set up snug as salt and pepper cellars and Sardar can give sermons to us in the garden of a Sunday.”

Mr. Thornfield’s shoulders bristled after this statement was hurled at me; but it was all bravado, for he searched my eyes as if all his many missed turnings were mapped in them.

“I . . . But of course, you were in two wars,” I stammered. “That isn’t the same thing at all.”

Charles Thornfield drew a stuttering breath—but instead of speaking, he brushed a hand over his lips, shutting his eyes in despair.

“This is why I cannot stay,” I cried. Rushing to the desk, I took both his gloved hands, which shook like the fine tremor in the bow after the arrow has flown. “You could tell me all and never diminish yourself in my estimation, but these half confidences are like Solomon’s suggestion of cutting a child in half. I understand what it is to feel so myself, for you know I have secrets, and it would never be enough, sharing fractions when I’m the greediest soul in shoe leather. I should blurt it all out, every sordid sin, and want the same of you, be petty and selfish and the most hateful person you’ve ever known when you deny me.”

“That is the most whopping pack of calumnies I have ever heard,” he husked, shifting my hands in his and studying them where they sat cradled. “Take ’em back this instant. You could never be hateful. And Sahjara will . . .” He shook his head, still not raising his eyes. “I hardly know what to say to her. Or to Sardar, either.”